"This transaction represents a major commitment to
strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future,"
said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO. "It will improve
network quality, and it will bring advanced LTE capabilities to more than 294
million people.

"This transaction delivers significant customer, shareowner
and public benefits that are available at this level only from the combination
of these two companies with complementary network technologies, spectrum
positions and operations. We are confident in our ability to execute a seamless
integration, and with additional spectrum and network capabilities, we can
better meet our customers’ current demands, build for the future and help
achieve the President’s goals for a high-speed, wirelessly connected America.”

The deal would of course have to be approved by U.S.
regulating bodies, but if all goes well, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom hope to
have the transition finalized within the next year.

AT&T is also looking to boost its nascent LTE efforts with
this transaction, and will bring the technology to 95 percent of the U.S.
population. AT&T will also spend an additional $8 billion over the next
five years to boost its infrastructure investment within the U.S.

We can only hope that the T-Mobile acquisition, broadened
LTE deployments, and increased spending on infrastructure will improve
AT&Ts famously "fragile" wireless network.

AT&T made headlines last week – and drew the wrath of
many – when it announced that it would
start cracking down on users that were using “illegal” jailbreak apps to
tether data with their smartphones.

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Their 3G networks are different but on the scale of an entire corporation it wont matter. From AT&T's perspective it will just be adding loads of coverage and when they go full 4G it will all be the same in the end.

The customers will end up getting screwed one way or another, regardless of technology.

For most existing phones yes, just as it would be for an ATT user jumping to TMobile, or vice versa. For new phones it won't be, ATTmobile will just use a 3g chip that can work on both sets of frequencies the way they currently due for a handful of pricier "international" models (some of which can also speak CDMA).

1. AT&T does not have any CDMA phones. What would be the point? It's pretty much unused outside of North America. You may be thinking of Verizon and Sprint who both offer "International" phones which add a GSM radio so they're actually useful off this continent.

2. T-Mobile's 3G is not on any of the frequencies you'd typically find on a quad-band international phone. There are a few other North American carriers using 1700 and two Chilean carriers, but right now it's rare. Because of this, there are very few phones capable of using 3G services on both networks. If you have a T-Mobile phone, you get T-Mobile 3G, if you have almost any other GSM 3G phone you can get AT&T 3G, and if you have a new Nokia you might be able to get both.

I expect future devices, particularly higher-end models, will have the five-band radios to properly support all of the important frequencies, but if this deal were to go through tomorrow and the roaming systems be immediately updated to allow it, a few thousand Nokia N8 users would be delighted by it and the rest of the world wouldn't notice.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates